Mrs. Miggins' Scarlet Chicken in a Pimpernel Sauce

 

Die hard fans - I mean REALLY die hard fans - of Britcoms will recognize this dish as an obscure single-line reference from the 1987 "Nob and Nobility" episode of the classic series, Blackadder.  In it, the show pokes fun at the legend of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a popular fictional story about a rich nobleman who decides to don a disguise and uses his money and skills to effect daring rescues of disenfranchised nobles from the clutches of the French Revolution under the pseudonym 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'.

Sound familiar?  A regular rich guy who wears disguises and uses pure skill to pursue the cause of his own vigilante form of justice?  That's because this story was one of the main influences for the development of the Batman mythology.  The original book, published in 1905, was wildly popular with a society that had finally come to terms with the violence and anarchy of the French Revolution, despite the book's clear pro-nobility stance. 

As only the supremely educated British comedy writer can, the story is cleverly parodied in the episode, and is presented as seen through the eyes of the butler Edmund.  Upon visiting his favorite pie shop, he's disgusted to find that Pimpernel-inspired Francophilia has taken over London and instead of Shepherd's Pie, is offered only a selection of pretentiously French dishes by the somewhat-less-than-upper-class proprietor, Mrs. Miggins. 

 "Today's hot choice is Chicken Pimpernel in a Scarlet Sauce, Scarlet Chicken in a Pimpernel Sauce, or Huge Suspicious Looking Sausages*.  In a Scarlet Pimpernel Sauce."

Blackadder doesn't have a ton of food references, and it's absolutely one of our favorite - and most quotable - TV series ever produced, so this seemed to be a good place to start.  

The humble Scarlet Pimpernel, image courtesy of Wikipedia 

I started (as always) by researching the main ingredients of the recipe and found that the Scarlet Pimpernel is a common roadside flower that grows extensively in Europe. The pimpernel family also includes an edible herb known to us Americans as Salad Burnet. Serendipitously, Salad Burnet is one of the main ingredients in the modern Frankfurt Green Sauce, a popular mixed herb sauce that dates back to the middle ages in one variant or another.

Clockwise from Top: Tarragon, Chervil, Chives, Tarragon, Parsley, Cress

The sauce is basically a puree of fresh green herbs, lemon and sour cream or yoghurt.  Since German field herbs don't grow so readily in US supermarkets, I thought it would be a good idea if I modified the recipe to used herbs and substitutions that could easily be purchased in your local grocery store.

For the Scarlet Chicken, we had a couple of options.  I leaned heavily on Gwen for this one, as she's got a Medieval History degree and knows everything about everything when you're talking historic food. 

According to her, Red spices like paprika and sumac would have been common in England during the late 1700's and used extensively to spice and flavor dishes.  Citrus would have been easily imported from France or Spain (though French lemons would have been an unlikely commodity during the revolution itself, due to interrupted trade).  Chickens would probably have been smaller, due to the lack of advances in genetic science during the time, so a modern GMO cornish game hen makes a nice substitute.

We never got the poultry to that bright red that you see in Tandoori cuisine (incidentally, Tandoori red is food coloring), but the bird did turn a rich toasty ruddy caramel color, loaded with flavor and smelled absolutely scrumptious while it was cooking.  However, they evidently liked food colored with livid hues in the olden days, so feel free to liven the meat up with some beet juice if it suits your fancy.

Using generous amounts of smoked instead of sweet paprika made the hen smell and taste just like bacon.  OMG.  Bacon flavored Chicken?  SIGN ME UP.  The idea was to make a really french dish, but... BACON!  It's close enough.

 

Pimpernel Sauce

Combine in a blender:
1 C Sour Cream
1/2 C Heavy Cream
1 Tbl Chopped Fresh Chives
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Dill
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Chervil
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Tarragon
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Parsley
1/2 C Chopped Fresh Upland Cress (sub with 1/4 C Watercress)
1 C Chopped Fresh Salad Burnet (Sub with Cucumber and decrease cream to 1/4 C)
Juice and Grated Rind of 1/2 Lemon
2 tsp Salt

Blend until smooth and creamy.  Adjust the herbs and salt to taste.  Let the sauce rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, up to 24 hours.

Scarlet Chicken

Brine
Dissolve into 3 Qt water:
1/4 C Salt
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar

Wash and remove giblets from
1 Cornish Game Hen
Brine for 2 hours

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Peel:
8 Cloves of Garlic
Using the flat of a knife, crush 2 of the cloves to bruise and soften them.

In a small bowl, mix together into a smooth paste:
3 Tbl Smoked Paprika
3 Tbl Dried Sumac
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 C Olive Oil
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Black Pepper
Set aside.

Peel and Slice into wedges:
1/4 Onion
1/4 Apple
Set aside.

Set a raised rack into an oven proof pan so that air can circulate underneath the bird.
Rub the hen inside and out with the crushed garlic.

Salt and Pepper the cavity of the bird and then stuff with the Apple and Onion Wedges and the whole garlic cloves.

Rub the paprika paste gently over the whole chicken (add a little more oil if it's too sticky)

Roast in oven at 450 for 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 375 and Roast in for 30-45 additional minutes or until the juices run clear. (internal temp of 155).

You can serve the sauce on the bird or on the side, whatever your personal preference dictates.  The sauce is fresh and creamy and balances the spicy/smokey richness of the poultry perfectly.

Bon Apetit, Monsieur!  It's French!


*They're horse willies.  No really, that's the joke.  How prescient those writers were...

Easy Dune Cupcakes

Spice Cake and Chocolate Sietch.  Note the edible glitter spice blow.

Arrakis.  Dune.  Dessert Planet.

I'm a huge Dune geek.  I love Star Wars and Star Trek, and have great respect for Stargate, Doctor Who, Ray Harryhausen and the like.  But in my heart of hearts, Dune is where my geeky little soul truly lies.  I've read all the books, played the board games (both versions), the video game and heavily compared and critiqued the David Lynch movie version to the SyFy series.

So when one of my oldest friends asked for Dune cupcakes for his birthday, I was compelled to oblige.  My friend is a pretty avid fan himself and when he once called my then-new-boyfriend a geek, the bf simply replied, "He had a collectible sandworm figure in the original box, and then had a second one to play with.  I'm not too concerned with him calling me a geek."

Occasionally, I run across really great Dune-themed cakes. 

See this? It's awesome. Yeah, I can't make that.*

That cake is amazing but impossible for a mere mortal. Instead, following are cupcakes that any Fremen can make in his sietch. 

Arrakis Spice Cake with Spice Frosting

Spice Cake
Any spice cake recipe will do.  I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe and it was delicious but crazy complex so I recommend just using a mix.

Many, many ingredients.

Make the cupcakes about 2 hours ahead of time so they have plenty of time to cool.  
It's best if your cupcakes have flat tops, not domed ones.  Makes 'em easier to decorate.

Flat Tops.  They're not just for the 80's anymore.

Spice Frosting
2 8-oz packages Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, softened
2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Tbl Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Real Maple Syrup
2 tsp Maple Extract

Cream the butter and cream cheese together.  Add the sugar and cream until smooth.  Add the syrup, cinnamon, salt and extract.  Set the bowl in the fridge for about 15 minutes to set up.

Toppings
Shai-Hulud: Gummy Worms (or any kind of edible wormy thing), cut to fit on the cakes
Sand: Vanilla Wafers or Shortbread Cookies, crushed into cumbs
Rock: Bulk Chunk Chocolate, smashed with a hammer into small chunks
Spice:  Edible Gold Glitter, available at specialty baking shops

Sietch Signs
Make tiny flags for the cupcakes by writing or printing the names of the sietches, cutting them into small flags and gluing to toothpicks or party picks.

Sietch Abbir

Sietch Gara Kulon

Sietch Jacurutu

Sietch Tabr

Tuek's Sietch

Windgap Sietch

Assembly
Frost the cupcakes by hand.  You can carefully sculpt dunes if you're good.  I'm not, so mine were flat desert.

We'll never reach the safety of Chocolate.  Well, maybe that small Chocolate.

 Sand: Either roll the cupcake tops in the cookie crumbs, or sprinkle the crumbs from the top.
Rock: Carefully poke in some of the chocolate shards to resemble a sietch.
Worm: Gummy worms don't bend well, so get creative. Shai-Hulud won't mind.
Spice: Sprinkle a little glitter around the worm. The worm is the spice.

Tasty enough for the Kwisatz Haderach!

**

*Courtesy of Jana's Fun Cakes.  Click the photo to see the source post.
**Courtesy of setphaserstolol.com.  Click the photo to see the source post.

Skyrim Food: Apple Cabbage Stew

Pardon me while I stop mid-fight to eat 20 bowls of Stew.

Apple Cabbage Stew.  Sounds tasty, yeah?  Well evidently in Skyrim the only seasoning anyone uses is Salt.  That's fine if you're living in a fantasized medieval Nordic land, but for the rest of us non-Stoics with more than 2 tastebuds who don't actually like eating raw dog meat and mammoth snout, getting this recipe to the Tasty Place was tricky.

The more posts we do, the more Gwen and I feel like what makes our site special is our overwhelming (some would say unhealthy) obsession with canon.  A lot of food blogs are written by cool, well-balanced people with interesting interpretations on recipes.  We're not those people. 

We actually debated making a common version of this stew that exists in the real world.  There was discussion about things like chicken stock, onions, thyme, red wine; ingredients that would make it conventionally tasty and easy to make. 

Easy?  Conventional?  Non-Canon?  BLASPHEMY!!

I  have a giant monkey brain that I use to think through creative problems.  Three ingredients?  No seasoning but salt?  No problem.  Chicken stock is for the weak.

Liberties were taken with the quantities and preparations of the three main ingredients, but no additional foods or seasonings have been added.  The final redaction is a riff on traditional Northern European sauerkraut dishes.  Sauerkraut (preserved cabbage) would be a very likely preparation in Skyrim.

Ingredients: Apple, Cabbage, Salt.

• 3 or 4 Sweet Apples, like Honeycrisp or Red Delicious
• 2 lb Salt-Cured Sauerkraut, Canned sauerkraut won't do.  Get the naturally cured stuff in the refrigerator section at the store made with Cabbage and Salt.
• 4 Cups Apple Juice or Apple Cider, The sweeter, the better; you're not going to add any sugar.
• Salt to taste

Found these authentic Skyrim apples in a barrow. They look like they'd been there for a couple millennia.

Directions

1. Empty the sauerkraut into a strainer, rinse and drain well.  Squeeze out extra moisture with your hands.
2. Dice all but one of the apples
3. Add the drained sauerkraut, apple juice and diced apples to a large pot and simmer over low heat for 3.5 hours
4. Dice the final apple and add it to the stew
5. Simmer another 30 minutes or until the stew is a nice dark golden color.
6. Salt to taste

It's actually pretty good - it's a crunchy sweet-n-sour hot dish that can double as a side to pork. It's also vegan.  The sauerkraut absorbs up the sugars from the apples and apple juice and it mellows out the tang of the kraut.  The longer you cook it, the more caramelized the stew will become, and the sweeter and darker it will get.